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Pre-Interview Discussion
This interview was conducted on May 18, 2000. Mark Madison (Mark), US Fish and Wildlife Service, Cam
Cavanaugh (Cam), author, Saving the Great Swamp, Bill Koch (Bill), US Fish and Wildlife Service were
present. The interview was conducted as part of an oral history preservation project by NCTC.
Mark
Copy of transcript promised to Cam and Bill Koch. Scholars here and NCTC want to know about this
unique refuge that was set up. We might use the book on display in the Wilderness Exhibit. Would like
to get the book republished. Only one other refuge they know of has a book written on it (Florida —
written by Refuge Manager).
Cam — Okay, well probably I should start by mentioning how I came to write this book.
I was a board member of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, but, before that I had been a
textbook editor. And so I talked to Dave Moore, I don’t know whether you have met him…he was for
many years, until recently, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, which was
an outgrowth of the Great Swamp Committee. And, I was on that Board, and, I was also a little bored
(b-o-r-e-d). (laughter) Not with the Board, but, with my life which had been a nine-to-five plus, and all
of a sudden I was retired, so, Dave Moore and I thought up this idea that maybe a book on the subject
would be appropriate, and, Dave had a wonderful secretary, called Katherine Bradshaw who is mentioned
in the introduction, and she said to me — she pointed to a file — a four-drawer file — I remember that
very distinctly, it was old and a little battered, and she said “In here are all the files for the Great Swamp
Committee, and very shortly they are going to be transferred to boxes like these, (temporary storage
type boxes) and they are going to go downstairs. And downstairs is a basement, very near a door, and
you know what happens to boxes that get in the way when they are near a door.” She said, “all of this is
going to be lost if somebody doesn’t put it down”. So, somebody turned out to be me.
And I made an arrangement that I would write, free, that I would donate my time and my services, if my
expenses were paid, if they found me a secretary to type, and, if the printing was a guarantee. And, that
was satisfactory to the Board of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.
So then I started, and for me, research is always the fun part. I had a wonderful time going through
those files. I was reading everything. And then I went to the local libraries and I saw what they had
under the subject, and of course the subject was the fight to save the Great Swamp from a huge 10,000
acre, it was said, jetport, that the Port Authority, which was then the Port of New York, not even New
Jersey in the title. And, I scribbled away, you can imagine, I’ve got a great many notes, and, I started
writing. And the way I write is I talk into a tape recorder and then (‘cause I have lots of papers, and I
can add facts) I have somebody type it up for me. And then I start the editing process from there.
So, I happily went on this and suddenly I said, “it’s very funny, but there’s nothing in here about the
political side.” Now we know Peter Frelinghuysen was very involved in this, we know there was a Jetport
Site Association — where is the information about them.” And of course I had been seeing some
information in the files of the local libraries — I’d been seeing newspaper articles and things that were
obviously generated from another source. So I said, “where is the rest of the story?” and I was told,
“well I’m sorry we don’t have it because we were told by our lawyer (now you remember this was back in
the ’59 early ‘60s and there’s a great difference in attititude towards what non-profits could do and
couldn’t do) and their lawyer had told them that they couldn’t have anything to do with a political side, or
they (the Great Swamp Committee) would lose their non-profit status. A very rigid interpretation, but I
think valid to a certain extent for that period of time, of course. So, I stopped writing, I said “you cannot
tell the story if you only have half the information”.
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This is what Bill wanted me to mention to you, that I went a party, I believe it was at Dave Moore’s
house, I’m not positive, but there were a lot of Trustees there. And I was talking to somebody who
asked me “how’s the book going” and I said “I stopped it”, and I told them the reason.
And Tony Arno, who was a Board Member, he was not in our conversation — he was talking with
somebody else — he wheeled around and he said “I have saved all of those”. Because his boss had been
the Chairman of the Jersey Jetport Site Association. Halleluiah! And, interestingly enough, that was also
in a four-drawer-battered cabinet that Tony Arno had been taking around, he was with a bank getting
larger and larger — and faithfully, he was dragging this around. He didn’t even trust me to take them
home. He gave me a little desk and copying privileges. I don’t know where those files are now, but I
don’t have them. He’s gone to Arizona, so maybe they’re there (laughter).
And another big part was the interviewing. The first person I interviewed was Helen (Fenske), you can
imagine she’d be the perfect person. And I’m sure she’s told you a great deal about what was going on.
And, Helen and I had lunch together, we had not known each other before, and I thought to myself,
Helen is the one that should be writing this book. But she told me she felt she didn’t have the time and
there was much else that she would rather do. And she was extremely generous at that time and
throughout whenever there was something that I needed. And she told me who to talk to. You’ll
probably notice that there’s a very long list of people I thanked (xeroxed). In fact when I went to the
man who was going to publish this he said “do you have to thank all these people?” and I said “yes, I do
have to thank all these people” because without their point of view…and everyone had a slightly different
view point, of course, they had different interests and had gone into it for different reasons, and so, this
list of course, is a longer list than Helen gave me, but she gave me a good list to start with.
And I just started calling up people, and I think two things helped. One, I was a Board Member and I
was doing this not commercially, I think that made people feel better about me, and consequently I was
often invited for tea by the ladies, and we just sat in their homes, usually, and many of them were still
living in the homes that would have been destroyed because the airport would have been there. The
story was always “my house would have been on runway number six (laughter). So that was very
interesting. And then I wrote letters to people like Stuart Udall and John Gottschalk and got very nice —
usually phone calls back— and that was great. My husband got a large charge out of it — hey you got a
phone call from Washington D.C. again, and George Batt, who is no longer living, actually heard that I
was coming out to California to accompany my husband on a business trip, and invited me to stop by,
and we had a wonderful long lunch, and he told me about his role. He had been President of the Jersey
Jetport Site Association — so people we very forthcoming.
Another thing that might interest you is the emotion the still exists today. The daughter-in-law of James
Kellogg, who was the Chairman of the Port Authority, is on the Board of the New Jersey Conservation
Foundation, and she told me that her husband, her son of the Chairman, still occasionally had
somebody— occasionally— come up and blast the son for the father. Now here we have a husband who
is very supportive, his wife who is on the Board, who really felt uncomfortable. There was a big event at
Drew University, and he said “I was afraid somebody would come up and take it out on me”. I mean,
people still are so angry about what happened.
My book is not an angry book, I think you would agree, purposefully, because I wanted it to be a
teaching tool. I wanted to describe a citizen action. If I had included all the anger and whatever, I think it
would have not been the right book for the future. But I did get a letter from a man who interviewed
who chastised me very seriously for not having brought out the great anger. The greatest anger, I think,
being Tobin obviously, but against the governor, Governor Meyner, and of course I didn’t particularly
want to bring that out too strongly, of course you have this Republican/Democrat thing.
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But anyway, that’s the biggest criticism that I got of this book— that it wasn’t angry enough.
Mark — the villain that comes across in the book is of course, the Port Authority. It’s a monolithic, rather
colonial type thing.
Cam — Yes, yes, and of course, Mr. Tobin, who was a good Irishman, did not like to be told. I’m sure
Helen mentioned to you that every time Mr. Tobin came out with a comment of some sort, the Great
Swamp Committee was delighted because…
…she actually did mention they waited for him to say something stupid.
Yes, that’s right, this is the best thing that could be in the media. A counter-attack when he was quiet,
was a little harder. People would sort of forget, as people do. It’s not really a problem, you know, it’s
too ridiculous. It’s not really going to happen. And I think that that was something that could always be
fought against, you know, it is ridiculous, but it could happen.
I have neighbor, I still have, and he’s a nice young man, who worked for the Port Authority. And he
heard that I was writing this book, and he said “now, would you like to come in to the Port Authority to
the World Trade Center.” And he said, “Now, I can’t get you an appointment with Mr. Tobin”. As a
matter of fact, I think Mr. Tobin was gone by that time, and I forget the name of the new director there,
but he said “I could probably get you to the library, after all the library is supposed to be public”….all the
files were supposed to be public.
So he made an appointment for me, there was a stack of consultants reports all nicely printed out. Some
of them I was familiar with because I had seen the in the libraries. Some were entirely new to me. The
librarian there, the message she was trying to get across to me was how seriously they had considered
other sites. Well, I was already learning that you could do what you want to with consultants, and that
you could plan to have something come out so it is negative or positive, depending on what you intend,
and so these wonderful glossy reports, I could just go the conclusion and immediately could tell this site
was much to far from New York, and even if the Great Swamp was not mentioned, you knew the
impression you were supposed to get.
But the great thing about that day was that I was introduced to the secretary who had been Austin
Tobin’s secretary, and she is still the secretary of the new executive director, and she proudly brought
out a copy of a speech that Austin Tobin had made to the Chamber of Commerce of New York, way after
people thought everything was quiet and it was not going to be a problem, and that the Refuge idea was
going to take over. In this speech he’s still talking about a jetport — you know where. And she asked
me if I would like a copy, and I said “Oh please, that’s a wonderful speech”. Of course, she had no idea
who I was, and that was the agreement that I had made with my neighbor that we would not discuss
anywhere in the building, at lunch or anywhere, why I was so interested.
Mark — it would be interesting to see if this book ever made it into their library.
Cam — It would be very, very interesting, but somehow I can guess. (laughter)
In the beginning this jetport was only to be intra-continental, as I said in the book, and so to begin with
it sounded like a nutty idea, you would go from Kennedy, which was then Idlewild, and drive across the
bridge or come across the tunnel and then catch another plane to take you to California. I mean, right
away it just…
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Este Stoll, who was very much involved in this, and I know you recall his name, once said to me that he
thought that the driving reasoning the beginning for putting an airport out here was that there had been
some serious accidents over the city of Newark, and people were scared to death, because they knew
those bigger planes were already on the drawing boards, and they would be a matter of time, and so
they were looking for another area.
And so, in the beginning, there was perhaps agreement, but when people began to realize, it wouldn’t be
just this area, but it would be the surrounding area. Where do you put the oil refinery tanks, where do
you put the motels for people to stay, what is there?
I don’t know whether Helen mentioned to you about Route 287? Route 287 is a very nice, very busy
expressway, and it was discovered by some nosy people that there were several exits and entrances
planned in Harding. You can get off in one place in Harding from 287, you have to get on Blackberry
Lane from another place. It’s not made to be convenient for commuters. Now, something entirely
different was planned, including an entrance and exit at Glen Alpin Road, where the Jockey Hollow is,
which would have been a very convenient direct route. People began to figure out how to stop other
things from happening. Because if you make the access more difficult, then, one more reason that this is
not the right place for the jetport.
Now, I wonder if I’m telling you what you are interested in knowing.
Mark — You are.
Cam — Bill mentioned that this is the First Wilderness Area in the Refuge System. The fact that it took
almost nine years is quite incredible too, I think. And I don’t know whether that’s a standard for
successful citizen actions today.
Mark - It’s actually quick for a Wilderness Area. This was the first one in the Interior. One thing you
might not have known, that we found out from another oral history, is that Fish and Wildlife was actually
dragging its feet on Wilderness designations for existing Refuges.
Jim Gillette talked to us, who was working on the Wilderness designations, and we had 10 years to
determine whether these would be wilderness areas or not, I forget what the acreage was, but, roadless
areas on wildlife refuges. We were supposed to make designations on all of these. Basically, the division
that had set these things up didn’t do much of anything for eight years, and then the Director came down
and said, “look, you have two years to do all of these, or we’re out of compliance” and so he said “the
division worked like mad, and then they shut down after 10 years.” If new refuges come in, we consider
if they’re Wilderness-qualified, like Alaska, and so on. But really, we had to do the backlog of how ever
many refuges we had in 1964, and look at these areas that might have been applicable, and part of it
was, we didn’t want to do it. He said the general feeling was not particularly positive in D.C. because we
couldn’t do wildlife management in a Wilderness area, and in some ways, that was seen as tying our
hands, so, we were ambiguous towards the designation too.
Yes, I can see that, and I can see it today in the congress, that you have the people from out west who
say “now, that’s not Wilderness, come out to our place.”
And the National Park Service is having the same problem. I’ve just recently gone off the Board of the
Washington Association, which is connected with the Morristown National Historical Park, and I know the
trouble that they have getting finances and getting support, because, a National Park is what’s out
there— in the west, and it’s not in New Jersey. It’s a problem, it’s a way of thinking that I suppose will
always exist.
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Helen, I’m sure, told you about Mr. Dodge. I never knew him, he was no longer living when I started
working on this book. Without Mr. Dodge, I really do think…
I went into the Morris County Courthouse, and looked at those deeds… I had heard rumors that he was
getting friends to buy pieces of land in their name, with his money, and that he was going to call the
shots as to where it was going to go. But, I thought it was a good idea to just double-check, and sure
enough, there were enough names that I knew who corroborated this very quiet and excellent plan.
I was wondering, how many houses are still in life-estate on this refuge.
Bill — that’s an increasing number, we’ve probably, within the last couple months, added two. There
are two more, that would have been added on the same day, but we had some final details—those will
probably be added before the summer gets into swing.
We probably have about eight current life-use reservations. There were a lot that were retired. The
ones that you’re talking about. There is one that in recent years, I got here in ’84 and we have probably
acquired about 8 in that time. There was one, Virgil Quick, who lives right on Long Hill Road, it’s the only
one we have in Harding Township, it’s right by the boardwalk. It’s interesting, because the house is on
the west side of the road, and the barn is on the east side of the road, in the Wilderness, so that is the
last remaining structure that we have in our wilderness area.
Mrs. Quick grew up in the Swamp, and she’s probably an interesting person to talk to. Those buildings
will stay there until that life-estate reverts to complete control of the Fish and Wildlife Service, then we
will have no choice, everything on the east side of the road will have to be taken down. We can think
about what we want to do and maybe retain the house and use it for something because it is out of the
Wilderness area. But, out of all the buildings in the Wilderness area, those are the last structures,
everything else has been taken care of, however, Whitebridge Road, we have been closing in on that.
We’ve got about eight life-use reservations, all of which we’ve gotten since ’94, and it’s closing in,
because we own all around it, and these are in-holdings, and some of the folks are just recently retired,
so we’ll have them, but we can buy the property at a lot less, and they’ll take care of it, so, it’s saving the
taxpayers money.
It’s really wonderful for these people because they were all willing sellers, they get to live there, they’ve
come to us, and they get some money up front. They only have to keep insurance on the house. We’re
not a “landlord/tenant” deal, we don’t collect rent, they just get a reduction based on their age from the
full evaluation. It’s very popular. In Long Hill Township, due to a petition from our neighbors supporting
us, got a resolution passed in the town to help support our land acquisition, they waved those taxes,
people no longer have to pay taxes. It’s a real popular thing. People are knocking on our doors as
interested sellers. So, we’ve gotten about 8 or 9, I may have missed one off the top of my head.
Cam — That’s wonderful. At some point, maybe 2015 or something, you’ll have the whole area?
Bill — I doubt it because it’s willing-sellers only. Some people within our approved acquisition boundary,
which probably includes at least another 2000 acres to what we currently own. Not everybody is going to
be willing in the next 15 years. But in the big picture, maybe 2050 or 2100, we would own it all. It’s a
long term plan.
In 2003, we are scheduled for a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP). And we will revisit our
acquisition boundary; I already have plans to expand. It was expanded in ’87 when we did our Master
Plan EIS, it was expanded from about 430 acres to 2430 acres, and that was with a lot of public support.
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They said, “You’ve got to have more land for authorization for acquisition because we were fighting
development issues. We’d battle for something for two years, and we’d win the battle, but lose the war.
It would happen just outside our boundary where we had less to say about it.” And we said, “Well, that’s
enough of that, lets expand the boundary” and we did.
Mark — it’s quite a change from the book where you had all these isolated areas that your were trying to
connect.
Cam — yes, that wonderful map shows just those little…
Bill — we still have some of that, but the holes are disappearing, and some getting smaller, and also
around the perimeter is pushing out. We’re running out of exterior because development is closing in on
us, and there are some places where we can’t go any further out.
Cam — this map of the Watershed shows this.
Mark - Do you think this was a unique circumstance here, or, do you think this could have happened
anywhere where a jetport was proposed? You do talk a lot about the local people, the local
circumstances, the local institutions. Even your title, “the people, the power brokers…”
Cam — Yes, certainly there were a lot of powerful people. People who either had money or knew people
who had money, and that, undoubtedly helped, and, Mr. Dodge. Going back to Mr. Dodge. I think
probably the Port Authority misjudged, thinking that Mr. Dodge was an old man. That people would sit
back and let him do it. They must have had some inkling into what he was doing, none of these things
are secret, especially when deeds have to be transferred and things, anybody can go in and look at them.
But it was the support that he had. This is self-interest too. If your house is nice house, and you live in
New Jersey, and you like the woods, and you like the raccoons, and you like the deer, and you don’t
want to be part of city life, then you’re going to put your money down to try to save it.
I was once told that there was an estimate that maybe one-third was really, really upset about it, one-third
couldn’t care less, and one third was for it. There was a local bank that said they were for it, (and
some people took their money out because they were very upset about this), that said, they would be
very happy to have a branch when the terminals were built. I think it’s in the book about the tunnel that
was going to go under the Morristown Green to facilitate the traffic…I’m also a trustee of the Morristown
Green and it makes me laugh every time I go over there and think about it.
And it is true that this idea seemed so ridiculous, that a lot of people thought it was just talk. I was living
in the area, I was not involved, I did not go to any of the meetings in the schoolhouses, I did not
volunteer to stuff envelopes. I was working, I was a new bride, I lived in New York City, I moved out
when I was married in 1955. I knew what was going on, but I didn’t subscribe to the Newark News.
That was the paper (no longer in existence now) that carried the banner whenever there was some
publicity wanted. They would call James Staples, being one of their favorite people to call, saying “do an
article for us on why we don’t want a jetport here.”
So, without the right people who were willing to stay in it for the long run, I think you would have trouble
doing a project like this. I don’t know what’s happening now, there are new airports, there is a new one
outside of Denver, I don’t know what the situation was, whether it was all farmland.
Mark — it’s a nice airport.
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Bill — its just big wide open space. I think there was a tremendous amount of local support for it. Not
sure if it’s near the new terminal…
Cam — I think it’s quite far away…it’s out there — right by Rocky Mountain Arsenal Refuge…
Bill — It’s far enough out there so it doesn’t get the congestion of the city, but it’s close enough a
commute to the city and the outlying areas to the west of the city. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot,
just ranch-land east of the airport.
Cam — I hate to say it, but the “self-interest” would not be there.
It’s interesting, I was thinking of this in the car on the way over, we just had the Mother’s March. I was
thinking of Helen because the woman who started this is from this area (Short Hills), working from this
area, there’s a photograph of her in the Star Ledger. She’s a mother in Short Hills. She just thought,
well, if a few people get started…
On our Church there’s a sign, “we’re just looking for a few good moms”. Now, that’s a grassroots
movement.
Stuart Udall turns out to be a sweetie, I had not met him. Udall came to a big event at Drew University,
for an anniversary that was the first time I met him. Of course, I had sent copies of the book to
everybody I had interviewed or who had written me— he said “oh, I still have a copy. I had to look at it
before I came because I had forgotten some of the facts.” We were on a school bus going from Mead
Hall to the gym where the dinner was…he’s such a genial, pleasant guy.
A number of people said to me, “thank you very much for the book”. The general impression I had, and
my feelings were not hurt because I could understand it, was that they were not going to forget one
single little thing about it.
We’ll you interviewed Charlie Deboviose, everybody scurried back to their copies. Then I really got the
compliments, 20 years later. People said, I thought I’d never forget anything about it, but I did, and I
could go back to your book, and it’s there. That made me feel very good about those people.
It’s been used in a couple of courses in Princeton. Charles Cummings in the Newark Library called me to
say “what is the date of your birth?” Of course, I had never written a book before, and it was just the
beginning of the cataloging where they put the dates…I thought what do you want to know that for?
“Oh, it’s important that we have that…” (laughter).
Okay, yes I underlined the crystal clear memories of what had happened and most unforgivingly who had
not. I told you about Kate Bradshaw, Tony Arno and Stuart Udall.
John Gottschalk, I spoke to him very briefly on the phone, Helen had told me what a great person he was
and how helpful he was.
I did want to talk a little bit about the cover. The cover was a photograph by Rudi Schonbeck, it’s called
Sunrise. This is not the color of the photograph he took, this is the publishers idea of what a cover should
look like. This is a perfectly beautiful, but ordinary-colored shot. Rudi Schonbeck was very ill and died of
cancer. His wife told me he had already died when I went to get permission to use the photograph on
the cover. His son used to bring him to the area and lay him down on the grass with his camera, you see
the shot is from a lying down position, and he would just shoot whatever interested him. I saw the
Foundation’s collection of slides, and this just sparked me because I thought it’s such a different view.
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I also have to tell you that the first time the staff of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation took this
book to a conference to sell it, a copy was stolen, and I thought, it’s because of this cover. You know,
there’s something about it. Then someone told me “well that’s good luck…people really want to read it!”
Bill — I would like to say something about the cover also. I worked here in ’71 to ’74. Somewhere
around ’73 or ’74, I lived in Whippany, and I was commuting into work. 287 wasn’t completed yet, so I
would commute by the Wildlife Observation Center. I came through there early one morning, and I just
swung into the area on my way into work. I saw someone in the area where they shouldn’t be, so I
hailed him. It was Rudi Schonbeck, and he had just taken some early sunrise pictures. And I just talked
to him and he went his way, and he was pretty much done at that point. Then, I don’t know if was the
Daily Record, or the Star Ledger, or the New York Times, one of the major papers, in the Sunday Edition,
I saw a picture like this, or very similar to this. I have kept this, and somewhere I still have this. He
could have taken it that morning. I was inspired by that too, because I have a little artistic talent, I have
done some pastel drawings…a couple of them were that photo…I wanted to capture that color. I often
wondered if he took this the morning I spoke with him.
He was all alone and he was quite agile at that point. When I first saw this, before I realized who took it,
I thought, this looks like Rudi Schonbeck’s work, and then sure enough. There’s a lot connected to
that...
Mark — what about the last part of your subtitle, did people really think this was a Wilderness out here,
or was this something that the locals to be sold on.
Cam — well, that was certainly part of the propaganda. You know, if we can make an urban wilderness
out of this. I think you have to go back to Mr. Dodge and his connection to the North American Wildlife
Foundation, that had some connection with Remington Arms. I believe he genuinely thought of the area
where he lived should be preserved. Urban, well, we weren’t urban, yet, in this area…I think you can say
we are certainly getting there now — at that time we were not. But, I think it had a certain ring to it,
and it was used before anything was discussed about the Wilderness designation. But would you call this
area…it’s always been wilder than parkland. Most people think of Central Park or Prospect Park or
something when they think of parkland. Something more manicured. This has never been a very
manicured area.
Mark — I’m just curious because I know it was controversial, people out west did not consider this
wilderness, I know Helen mentioned it too. What about the Refuge, did people support the Refuge
because they really wanted a refuge, or because they would have preferred anything as opposed to a
jetport?
Cam — Well, I think the refuge was an idea that already made sense. People are used to Federal
Government through the National Park Service and the large holdings they already have in Jockey Hollow
or Washington’s Headquarters. This was a good idea…and it brings people to the area. I’m jumping a
little bit, but it brings to mind the “Disneyworld Plans”…I’m think of the 1970s where you could have little
trains running around the area, this was part a management plan to bring people to the area. The little
train would stop…if there’s a little train then they won’t be walking around where they’re not supposed
to…but will stop at various stations and look at the ducks quacking…
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has a very good reputation in this area. This could be what I’m hearing
at the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, and I’m taking tales out of school, but the National Park
Service is a lot tighter with their acquisitions, for example, there’s a lot more red-tape. The US Fish and
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Wildlife Service is considered a very nice service to deal with, with very good people in their Washington
Office.
Bill — the Park Service Land Acquisition Authority is different from the Fish and Wildlife Service. They
need specific legislation to pick up land…it’s much tougher to do it. We operate differently, and we can
have a larger area approved for acquisition and if you are operating at or near that within certain criteria
outside your approved boundary, you can still acquire some land outside that, without any additional
congressional approval. You may have to go through a bit of a process, but within that approved
boundary, once you go through the process, you can just buy it, from willing sellers, if it is not
contaminated. You can keep buying the land. The Park Service does need approval from Congress.
Congress appropriates the money, but it is a different process. As long as there is money, we can keep
buying.
We also have Duck Stamp Money to buy lands. That unfortunately is not a whole lot, but it is another
source (Migratory Bird Conservation Stamps). And, some of this Refuge is bought with Duck Stamp
money. But, in the scheme of things, it’s a small percent of what is needed and what is out there.
Mark — one of the major differences is what you can do with the lands. Park Service is precluded from
many (hunting, fishing) activities that the refuge is not by its mission and mandates. This was a major
problem with the refuge in Vermont.
Bill — technically, when a Refuge is first established, it is closed to all uses, until you go through a
procedure to allow those uses. More recently in the legislation, the Refuge Improvement Act of 1997, it
has identified what we call the “big six”. Uses that aren’t mandated on any Refuge. It’s just that these
are recognized public uses (hunting and fishing being two) that can be allowed if they are compatible.
They were allowed before, if they were compatible, but here, they are featured. They are not the only
uses, but they are uses that we put on the marquee that we recognize these ahead of time, if they can
be compatible, they can be allowed. The duck stamp, goes towards buying refuge land. Started out as
purchased primarily by migratory bird hunters, but there was a contribution directly to the refuge in that
fashion. Hunters are not the only ones buying them these days. They are the most collectible stamp,
and are limited to one year circulation…
Cam — You know, going back to something that you asked me before, the education process, so to
speak. There was very wonderful exhibit at the Short Hills Mall when it was much smaller, that Roena
McPhail had a great deal to do with this. They trucked in cattails, and they made little scenes of the
Swamp, assuming that people even living as close as Short Hills even bothered to come over here.
The mall in its present shape is more recent — it used to be a very, very open mall. More like a
California mall, and I felt personally unhappy when they did it over. In fact, the restaurant where Helen
and I had our first lunch was in the mall, upstairs, overlooking what is now the South Orange Reservoir.
…So people needed education as to why. To be honest with you, whether there was this great cry for a
refuge, or whether they say however we do it, we’ve got to do it because we have to do it, I would say
that would vary from person to person.
Mark — Anything else we know that wasn’t in the book. I have to say the book, your description of the
Refuge System, the Fish and Wildlife Service are super. It clarified things when you told me you used to
do textbook editing, because it is very clear. A brief synopsis and very accurate.
Cam — Well I have to tell you that I did a great deal of cribbing from the material that I got from the
files. Quite clearly that was something that had been prepared, in John Gottschalk’s office, I don’t know.
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That’s what would be so vital in a citizens action like this. Don’t give them heavy things to read, give
them a one-page summary that tells the story.
I think I have told you everything that I can think of, and if I think of anything vital that I forgot, I will let
you know.
Mark — Cam, thanks so much for your time.
Cam — just remember about those people. This is the contribution.
• 6,100 individuals
• from 462 organizations
• from 286 towns
• and 29 states.
Mark - How did the people in other states even know about the Great Swamp? Was there a brochure
done?
Cam — oh, absolutely. Garden Clubs are extremely important. But also people who used to live here
and had moved away, they were horrified. In fact, I would have thought it would have been 50 states,
but 29 is pretty good.
Thank Yous…end of tape.
Transcribed by Brisun Productions, Inc. — April 23, 2001

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Pre-Interview Discussion
This interview was conducted on May 18, 2000. Mark Madison (Mark), US Fish and Wildlife Service, Cam
Cavanaugh (Cam), author, Saving the Great Swamp, Bill Koch (Bill), US Fish and Wildlife Service were
present. The interview was conducted as part of an oral history preservation project by NCTC.
Mark
Copy of transcript promised to Cam and Bill Koch. Scholars here and NCTC want to know about this
unique refuge that was set up. We might use the book on display in the Wilderness Exhibit. Would like
to get the book republished. Only one other refuge they know of has a book written on it (Florida —
written by Refuge Manager).
Cam — Okay, well probably I should start by mentioning how I came to write this book.
I was a board member of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, but, before that I had been a
textbook editor. And so I talked to Dave Moore, I don’t know whether you have met him…he was for
many years, until recently, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, which was
an outgrowth of the Great Swamp Committee. And, I was on that Board, and, I was also a little bored
(b-o-r-e-d). (laughter) Not with the Board, but, with my life which had been a nine-to-five plus, and all
of a sudden I was retired, so, Dave Moore and I thought up this idea that maybe a book on the subject
would be appropriate, and, Dave had a wonderful secretary, called Katherine Bradshaw who is mentioned
in the introduction, and she said to me — she pointed to a file — a four-drawer file — I remember that
very distinctly, it was old and a little battered, and she said “In here are all the files for the Great Swamp
Committee, and very shortly they are going to be transferred to boxes like these, (temporary storage
type boxes) and they are going to go downstairs. And downstairs is a basement, very near a door, and
you know what happens to boxes that get in the way when they are near a door.” She said, “all of this is
going to be lost if somebody doesn’t put it down”. So, somebody turned out to be me.
And I made an arrangement that I would write, free, that I would donate my time and my services, if my
expenses were paid, if they found me a secretary to type, and, if the printing was a guarantee. And, that
was satisfactory to the Board of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation.
So then I started, and for me, research is always the fun part. I had a wonderful time going through
those files. I was reading everything. And then I went to the local libraries and I saw what they had
under the subject, and of course the subject was the fight to save the Great Swamp from a huge 10,000
acre, it was said, jetport, that the Port Authority, which was then the Port of New York, not even New
Jersey in the title. And, I scribbled away, you can imagine, I’ve got a great many notes, and, I started
writing. And the way I write is I talk into a tape recorder and then (‘cause I have lots of papers, and I
can add facts) I have somebody type it up for me. And then I start the editing process from there.
So, I happily went on this and suddenly I said, “it’s very funny, but there’s nothing in here about the
political side.” Now we know Peter Frelinghuysen was very involved in this, we know there was a Jetport
Site Association — where is the information about them.” And of course I had been seeing some
information in the files of the local libraries — I’d been seeing newspaper articles and things that were
obviously generated from another source. So I said, “where is the rest of the story?” and I was told,
“well I’m sorry we don’t have it because we were told by our lawyer (now you remember this was back in
the ’59 early ‘60s and there’s a great difference in attititude towards what non-profits could do and
couldn’t do) and their lawyer had told them that they couldn’t have anything to do with a political side, or
they (the Great Swamp Committee) would lose their non-profit status. A very rigid interpretation, but I
think valid to a certain extent for that period of time, of course. So, I stopped writing, I said “you cannot
tell the story if you only have half the information”.
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This is what Bill wanted me to mention to you, that I went a party, I believe it was at Dave Moore’s
house, I’m not positive, but there were a lot of Trustees there. And I was talking to somebody who
asked me “how’s the book going” and I said “I stopped it”, and I told them the reason.
And Tony Arno, who was a Board Member, he was not in our conversation — he was talking with
somebody else — he wheeled around and he said “I have saved all of those”. Because his boss had been
the Chairman of the Jersey Jetport Site Association. Halleluiah! And, interestingly enough, that was also
in a four-drawer-battered cabinet that Tony Arno had been taking around, he was with a bank getting
larger and larger — and faithfully, he was dragging this around. He didn’t even trust me to take them
home. He gave me a little desk and copying privileges. I don’t know where those files are now, but I
don’t have them. He’s gone to Arizona, so maybe they’re there (laughter).
And another big part was the interviewing. The first person I interviewed was Helen (Fenske), you can
imagine she’d be the perfect person. And I’m sure she’s told you a great deal about what was going on.
And, Helen and I had lunch together, we had not known each other before, and I thought to myself,
Helen is the one that should be writing this book. But she told me she felt she didn’t have the time and
there was much else that she would rather do. And she was extremely generous at that time and
throughout whenever there was something that I needed. And she told me who to talk to. You’ll
probably notice that there’s a very long list of people I thanked (xeroxed). In fact when I went to the
man who was going to publish this he said “do you have to thank all these people?” and I said “yes, I do
have to thank all these people” because without their point of view…and everyone had a slightly different
view point, of course, they had different interests and had gone into it for different reasons, and so, this
list of course, is a longer list than Helen gave me, but she gave me a good list to start with.
And I just started calling up people, and I think two things helped. One, I was a Board Member and I
was doing this not commercially, I think that made people feel better about me, and consequently I was
often invited for tea by the ladies, and we just sat in their homes, usually, and many of them were still
living in the homes that would have been destroyed because the airport would have been there. The
story was always “my house would have been on runway number six (laughter). So that was very
interesting. And then I wrote letters to people like Stuart Udall and John Gottschalk and got very nice —
usually phone calls back— and that was great. My husband got a large charge out of it — hey you got a
phone call from Washington D.C. again, and George Batt, who is no longer living, actually heard that I
was coming out to California to accompany my husband on a business trip, and invited me to stop by,
and we had a wonderful long lunch, and he told me about his role. He had been President of the Jersey
Jetport Site Association — so people we very forthcoming.
Another thing that might interest you is the emotion the still exists today. The daughter-in-law of James
Kellogg, who was the Chairman of the Port Authority, is on the Board of the New Jersey Conservation
Foundation, and she told me that her husband, her son of the Chairman, still occasionally had
somebody— occasionally— come up and blast the son for the father. Now here we have a husband who
is very supportive, his wife who is on the Board, who really felt uncomfortable. There was a big event at
Drew University, and he said “I was afraid somebody would come up and take it out on me”. I mean,
people still are so angry about what happened.
My book is not an angry book, I think you would agree, purposefully, because I wanted it to be a
teaching tool. I wanted to describe a citizen action. If I had included all the anger and whatever, I think it
would have not been the right book for the future. But I did get a letter from a man who interviewed
who chastised me very seriously for not having brought out the great anger. The greatest anger, I think,
being Tobin obviously, but against the governor, Governor Meyner, and of course I didn’t particularly
want to bring that out too strongly, of course you have this Republican/Democrat thing.
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But anyway, that’s the biggest criticism that I got of this book— that it wasn’t angry enough.
Mark — the villain that comes across in the book is of course, the Port Authority. It’s a monolithic, rather
colonial type thing.
Cam — Yes, yes, and of course, Mr. Tobin, who was a good Irishman, did not like to be told. I’m sure
Helen mentioned to you that every time Mr. Tobin came out with a comment of some sort, the Great
Swamp Committee was delighted because…
…she actually did mention they waited for him to say something stupid.
Yes, that’s right, this is the best thing that could be in the media. A counter-attack when he was quiet,
was a little harder. People would sort of forget, as people do. It’s not really a problem, you know, it’s
too ridiculous. It’s not really going to happen. And I think that that was something that could always be
fought against, you know, it is ridiculous, but it could happen.
I have neighbor, I still have, and he’s a nice young man, who worked for the Port Authority. And he
heard that I was writing this book, and he said “now, would you like to come in to the Port Authority to
the World Trade Center.” And he said, “Now, I can’t get you an appointment with Mr. Tobin”. As a
matter of fact, I think Mr. Tobin was gone by that time, and I forget the name of the new director there,
but he said “I could probably get you to the library, after all the library is supposed to be public”….all the
files were supposed to be public.
So he made an appointment for me, there was a stack of consultants reports all nicely printed out. Some
of them I was familiar with because I had seen the in the libraries. Some were entirely new to me. The
librarian there, the message she was trying to get across to me was how seriously they had considered
other sites. Well, I was already learning that you could do what you want to with consultants, and that
you could plan to have something come out so it is negative or positive, depending on what you intend,
and so these wonderful glossy reports, I could just go the conclusion and immediately could tell this site
was much to far from New York, and even if the Great Swamp was not mentioned, you knew the
impression you were supposed to get.
But the great thing about that day was that I was introduced to the secretary who had been Austin
Tobin’s secretary, and she is still the secretary of the new executive director, and she proudly brought
out a copy of a speech that Austin Tobin had made to the Chamber of Commerce of New York, way after
people thought everything was quiet and it was not going to be a problem, and that the Refuge idea was
going to take over. In this speech he’s still talking about a jetport — you know where. And she asked
me if I would like a copy, and I said “Oh please, that’s a wonderful speech”. Of course, she had no idea
who I was, and that was the agreement that I had made with my neighbor that we would not discuss
anywhere in the building, at lunch or anywhere, why I was so interested.
Mark — it would be interesting to see if this book ever made it into their library.
Cam — It would be very, very interesting, but somehow I can guess. (laughter)
In the beginning this jetport was only to be intra-continental, as I said in the book, and so to begin with
it sounded like a nutty idea, you would go from Kennedy, which was then Idlewild, and drive across the
bridge or come across the tunnel and then catch another plane to take you to California. I mean, right
away it just…
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Este Stoll, who was very much involved in this, and I know you recall his name, once said to me that he
thought that the driving reasoning the beginning for putting an airport out here was that there had been
some serious accidents over the city of Newark, and people were scared to death, because they knew
those bigger planes were already on the drawing boards, and they would be a matter of time, and so
they were looking for another area.
And so, in the beginning, there was perhaps agreement, but when people began to realize, it wouldn’t be
just this area, but it would be the surrounding area. Where do you put the oil refinery tanks, where do
you put the motels for people to stay, what is there?
I don’t know whether Helen mentioned to you about Route 287? Route 287 is a very nice, very busy
expressway, and it was discovered by some nosy people that there were several exits and entrances
planned in Harding. You can get off in one place in Harding from 287, you have to get on Blackberry
Lane from another place. It’s not made to be convenient for commuters. Now, something entirely
different was planned, including an entrance and exit at Glen Alpin Road, where the Jockey Hollow is,
which would have been a very convenient direct route. People began to figure out how to stop other
things from happening. Because if you make the access more difficult, then, one more reason that this is
not the right place for the jetport.
Now, I wonder if I’m telling you what you are interested in knowing.
Mark — You are.
Cam — Bill mentioned that this is the First Wilderness Area in the Refuge System. The fact that it took
almost nine years is quite incredible too, I think. And I don’t know whether that’s a standard for
successful citizen actions today.
Mark - It’s actually quick for a Wilderness Area. This was the first one in the Interior. One thing you
might not have known, that we found out from another oral history, is that Fish and Wildlife was actually
dragging its feet on Wilderness designations for existing Refuges.
Jim Gillette talked to us, who was working on the Wilderness designations, and we had 10 years to
determine whether these would be wilderness areas or not, I forget what the acreage was, but, roadless
areas on wildlife refuges. We were supposed to make designations on all of these. Basically, the division
that had set these things up didn’t do much of anything for eight years, and then the Director came down
and said, “look, you have two years to do all of these, or we’re out of compliance” and so he said “the
division worked like mad, and then they shut down after 10 years.” If new refuges come in, we consider
if they’re Wilderness-qualified, like Alaska, and so on. But really, we had to do the backlog of how ever
many refuges we had in 1964, and look at these areas that might have been applicable, and part of it
was, we didn’t want to do it. He said the general feeling was not particularly positive in D.C. because we
couldn’t do wildlife management in a Wilderness area, and in some ways, that was seen as tying our
hands, so, we were ambiguous towards the designation too.
Yes, I can see that, and I can see it today in the congress, that you have the people from out west who
say “now, that’s not Wilderness, come out to our place.”
And the National Park Service is having the same problem. I’ve just recently gone off the Board of the
Washington Association, which is connected with the Morristown National Historical Park, and I know the
trouble that they have getting finances and getting support, because, a National Park is what’s out
there— in the west, and it’s not in New Jersey. It’s a problem, it’s a way of thinking that I suppose will
always exist.
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Helen, I’m sure, told you about Mr. Dodge. I never knew him, he was no longer living when I started
working on this book. Without Mr. Dodge, I really do think…
I went into the Morris County Courthouse, and looked at those deeds… I had heard rumors that he was
getting friends to buy pieces of land in their name, with his money, and that he was going to call the
shots as to where it was going to go. But, I thought it was a good idea to just double-check, and sure
enough, there were enough names that I knew who corroborated this very quiet and excellent plan.
I was wondering, how many houses are still in life-estate on this refuge.
Bill — that’s an increasing number, we’ve probably, within the last couple months, added two. There
are two more, that would have been added on the same day, but we had some final details—those will
probably be added before the summer gets into swing.
We probably have about eight current life-use reservations. There were a lot that were retired. The
ones that you’re talking about. There is one that in recent years, I got here in ’84 and we have probably
acquired about 8 in that time. There was one, Virgil Quick, who lives right on Long Hill Road, it’s the only
one we have in Harding Township, it’s right by the boardwalk. It’s interesting, because the house is on
the west side of the road, and the barn is on the east side of the road, in the Wilderness, so that is the
last remaining structure that we have in our wilderness area.
Mrs. Quick grew up in the Swamp, and she’s probably an interesting person to talk to. Those buildings
will stay there until that life-estate reverts to complete control of the Fish and Wildlife Service, then we
will have no choice, everything on the east side of the road will have to be taken down. We can think
about what we want to do and maybe retain the house and use it for something because it is out of the
Wilderness area. But, out of all the buildings in the Wilderness area, those are the last structures,
everything else has been taken care of, however, Whitebridge Road, we have been closing in on that.
We’ve got about eight life-use reservations, all of which we’ve gotten since ’94, and it’s closing in,
because we own all around it, and these are in-holdings, and some of the folks are just recently retired,
so we’ll have them, but we can buy the property at a lot less, and they’ll take care of it, so, it’s saving the
taxpayers money.
It’s really wonderful for these people because they were all willing sellers, they get to live there, they’ve
come to us, and they get some money up front. They only have to keep insurance on the house. We’re
not a “landlord/tenant” deal, we don’t collect rent, they just get a reduction based on their age from the
full evaluation. It’s very popular. In Long Hill Township, due to a petition from our neighbors supporting
us, got a resolution passed in the town to help support our land acquisition, they waved those taxes,
people no longer have to pay taxes. It’s a real popular thing. People are knocking on our doors as
interested sellers. So, we’ve gotten about 8 or 9, I may have missed one off the top of my head.
Cam — That’s wonderful. At some point, maybe 2015 or something, you’ll have the whole area?
Bill — I doubt it because it’s willing-sellers only. Some people within our approved acquisition boundary,
which probably includes at least another 2000 acres to what we currently own. Not everybody is going to
be willing in the next 15 years. But in the big picture, maybe 2050 or 2100, we would own it all. It’s a
long term plan.
In 2003, we are scheduled for a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP). And we will revisit our
acquisition boundary; I already have plans to expand. It was expanded in ’87 when we did our Master
Plan EIS, it was expanded from about 430 acres to 2430 acres, and that was with a lot of public support.
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They said, “You’ve got to have more land for authorization for acquisition because we were fighting
development issues. We’d battle for something for two years, and we’d win the battle, but lose the war.
It would happen just outside our boundary where we had less to say about it.” And we said, “Well, that’s
enough of that, lets expand the boundary” and we did.
Mark — it’s quite a change from the book where you had all these isolated areas that your were trying to
connect.
Cam — yes, that wonderful map shows just those little…
Bill — we still have some of that, but the holes are disappearing, and some getting smaller, and also
around the perimeter is pushing out. We’re running out of exterior because development is closing in on
us, and there are some places where we can’t go any further out.
Cam — this map of the Watershed shows this.
Mark - Do you think this was a unique circumstance here, or, do you think this could have happened
anywhere where a jetport was proposed? You do talk a lot about the local people, the local
circumstances, the local institutions. Even your title, “the people, the power brokers…”
Cam — Yes, certainly there were a lot of powerful people. People who either had money or knew people
who had money, and that, undoubtedly helped, and, Mr. Dodge. Going back to Mr. Dodge. I think
probably the Port Authority misjudged, thinking that Mr. Dodge was an old man. That people would sit
back and let him do it. They must have had some inkling into what he was doing, none of these things
are secret, especially when deeds have to be transferred and things, anybody can go in and look at them.
But it was the support that he had. This is self-interest too. If your house is nice house, and you live in
New Jersey, and you like the woods, and you like the raccoons, and you like the deer, and you don’t
want to be part of city life, then you’re going to put your money down to try to save it.
I was once told that there was an estimate that maybe one-third was really, really upset about it, one-third
couldn’t care less, and one third was for it. There was a local bank that said they were for it, (and
some people took their money out because they were very upset about this), that said, they would be
very happy to have a branch when the terminals were built. I think it’s in the book about the tunnel that
was going to go under the Morristown Green to facilitate the traffic…I’m also a trustee of the Morristown
Green and it makes me laugh every time I go over there and think about it.
And it is true that this idea seemed so ridiculous, that a lot of people thought it was just talk. I was living
in the area, I was not involved, I did not go to any of the meetings in the schoolhouses, I did not
volunteer to stuff envelopes. I was working, I was a new bride, I lived in New York City, I moved out
when I was married in 1955. I knew what was going on, but I didn’t subscribe to the Newark News.
That was the paper (no longer in existence now) that carried the banner whenever there was some
publicity wanted. They would call James Staples, being one of their favorite people to call, saying “do an
article for us on why we don’t want a jetport here.”
So, without the right people who were willing to stay in it for the long run, I think you would have trouble
doing a project like this. I don’t know what’s happening now, there are new airports, there is a new one
outside of Denver, I don’t know what the situation was, whether it was all farmland.
Mark — it’s a nice airport.
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Bill — its just big wide open space. I think there was a tremendous amount of local support for it. Not
sure if it’s near the new terminal…
Cam — I think it’s quite far away…it’s out there — right by Rocky Mountain Arsenal Refuge…
Bill — It’s far enough out there so it doesn’t get the congestion of the city, but it’s close enough a
commute to the city and the outlying areas to the west of the city. There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot,
just ranch-land east of the airport.
Cam — I hate to say it, but the “self-interest” would not be there.
It’s interesting, I was thinking of this in the car on the way over, we just had the Mother’s March. I was
thinking of Helen because the woman who started this is from this area (Short Hills), working from this
area, there’s a photograph of her in the Star Ledger. She’s a mother in Short Hills. She just thought,
well, if a few people get started…
On our Church there’s a sign, “we’re just looking for a few good moms”. Now, that’s a grassroots
movement.
Stuart Udall turns out to be a sweetie, I had not met him. Udall came to a big event at Drew University,
for an anniversary that was the first time I met him. Of course, I had sent copies of the book to
everybody I had interviewed or who had written me— he said “oh, I still have a copy. I had to look at it
before I came because I had forgotten some of the facts.” We were on a school bus going from Mead
Hall to the gym where the dinner was…he’s such a genial, pleasant guy.
A number of people said to me, “thank you very much for the book”. The general impression I had, and
my feelings were not hurt because I could understand it, was that they were not going to forget one
single little thing about it.
We’ll you interviewed Charlie Deboviose, everybody scurried back to their copies. Then I really got the
compliments, 20 years later. People said, I thought I’d never forget anything about it, but I did, and I
could go back to your book, and it’s there. That made me feel very good about those people.
It’s been used in a couple of courses in Princeton. Charles Cummings in the Newark Library called me to
say “what is the date of your birth?” Of course, I had never written a book before, and it was just the
beginning of the cataloging where they put the dates…I thought what do you want to know that for?
“Oh, it’s important that we have that…” (laughter).
Okay, yes I underlined the crystal clear memories of what had happened and most unforgivingly who had
not. I told you about Kate Bradshaw, Tony Arno and Stuart Udall.
John Gottschalk, I spoke to him very briefly on the phone, Helen had told me what a great person he was
and how helpful he was.
I did want to talk a little bit about the cover. The cover was a photograph by Rudi Schonbeck, it’s called
Sunrise. This is not the color of the photograph he took, this is the publishers idea of what a cover should
look like. This is a perfectly beautiful, but ordinary-colored shot. Rudi Schonbeck was very ill and died of
cancer. His wife told me he had already died when I went to get permission to use the photograph on
the cover. His son used to bring him to the area and lay him down on the grass with his camera, you see
the shot is from a lying down position, and he would just shoot whatever interested him. I saw the
Foundation’s collection of slides, and this just sparked me because I thought it’s such a different view.
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I also have to tell you that the first time the staff of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation took this
book to a conference to sell it, a copy was stolen, and I thought, it’s because of this cover. You know,
there’s something about it. Then someone told me “well that’s good luck…people really want to read it!”
Bill — I would like to say something about the cover also. I worked here in ’71 to ’74. Somewhere
around ’73 or ’74, I lived in Whippany, and I was commuting into work. 287 wasn’t completed yet, so I
would commute by the Wildlife Observation Center. I came through there early one morning, and I just
swung into the area on my way into work. I saw someone in the area where they shouldn’t be, so I
hailed him. It was Rudi Schonbeck, and he had just taken some early sunrise pictures. And I just talked
to him and he went his way, and he was pretty much done at that point. Then, I don’t know if was the
Daily Record, or the Star Ledger, or the New York Times, one of the major papers, in the Sunday Edition,
I saw a picture like this, or very similar to this. I have kept this, and somewhere I still have this. He
could have taken it that morning. I was inspired by that too, because I have a little artistic talent, I have
done some pastel drawings…a couple of them were that photo…I wanted to capture that color. I often
wondered if he took this the morning I spoke with him.
He was all alone and he was quite agile at that point. When I first saw this, before I realized who took it,
I thought, this looks like Rudi Schonbeck’s work, and then sure enough. There’s a lot connected to
that...
Mark — what about the last part of your subtitle, did people really think this was a Wilderness out here,
or was this something that the locals to be sold on.
Cam — well, that was certainly part of the propaganda. You know, if we can make an urban wilderness
out of this. I think you have to go back to Mr. Dodge and his connection to the North American Wildlife
Foundation, that had some connection with Remington Arms. I believe he genuinely thought of the area
where he lived should be preserved. Urban, well, we weren’t urban, yet, in this area…I think you can say
we are certainly getting there now — at that time we were not. But, I think it had a certain ring to it,
and it was used before anything was discussed about the Wilderness designation. But would you call this
area…it’s always been wilder than parkland. Most people think of Central Park or Prospect Park or
something when they think of parkland. Something more manicured. This has never been a very
manicured area.
Mark — I’m just curious because I know it was controversial, people out west did not consider this
wilderness, I know Helen mentioned it too. What about the Refuge, did people support the Refuge
because they really wanted a refuge, or because they would have preferred anything as opposed to a
jetport?
Cam — Well, I think the refuge was an idea that already made sense. People are used to Federal
Government through the National Park Service and the large holdings they already have in Jockey Hollow
or Washington’s Headquarters. This was a good idea…and it brings people to the area. I’m jumping a
little bit, but it brings to mind the “Disneyworld Plans”…I’m think of the 1970s where you could have little
trains running around the area, this was part a management plan to bring people to the area. The little
train would stop…if there’s a little train then they won’t be walking around where they’re not supposed
to…but will stop at various stations and look at the ducks quacking…
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has a very good reputation in this area. This could be what I’m hearing
at the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, and I’m taking tales out of school, but the National Park
Service is a lot tighter with their acquisitions, for example, there’s a lot more red-tape. The US Fish and
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Wildlife Service is considered a very nice service to deal with, with very good people in their Washington
Office.
Bill — the Park Service Land Acquisition Authority is different from the Fish and Wildlife Service. They
need specific legislation to pick up land…it’s much tougher to do it. We operate differently, and we can
have a larger area approved for acquisition and if you are operating at or near that within certain criteria
outside your approved boundary, you can still acquire some land outside that, without any additional
congressional approval. You may have to go through a bit of a process, but within that approved
boundary, once you go through the process, you can just buy it, from willing sellers, if it is not
contaminated. You can keep buying the land. The Park Service does need approval from Congress.
Congress appropriates the money, but it is a different process. As long as there is money, we can keep
buying.
We also have Duck Stamp Money to buy lands. That unfortunately is not a whole lot, but it is another
source (Migratory Bird Conservation Stamps). And, some of this Refuge is bought with Duck Stamp
money. But, in the scheme of things, it’s a small percent of what is needed and what is out there.
Mark — one of the major differences is what you can do with the lands. Park Service is precluded from
many (hunting, fishing) activities that the refuge is not by its mission and mandates. This was a major
problem with the refuge in Vermont.
Bill — technically, when a Refuge is first established, it is closed to all uses, until you go through a
procedure to allow those uses. More recently in the legislation, the Refuge Improvement Act of 1997, it
has identified what we call the “big six”. Uses that aren’t mandated on any Refuge. It’s just that these
are recognized public uses (hunting and fishing being two) that can be allowed if they are compatible.
They were allowed before, if they were compatible, but here, they are featured. They are not the only
uses, but they are uses that we put on the marquee that we recognize these ahead of time, if they can
be compatible, they can be allowed. The duck stamp, goes towards buying refuge land. Started out as
purchased primarily by migratory bird hunters, but there was a contribution directly to the refuge in that
fashion. Hunters are not the only ones buying them these days. They are the most collectible stamp,
and are limited to one year circulation…
Cam — You know, going back to something that you asked me before, the education process, so to
speak. There was very wonderful exhibit at the Short Hills Mall when it was much smaller, that Roena
McPhail had a great deal to do with this. They trucked in cattails, and they made little scenes of the
Swamp, assuming that people even living as close as Short Hills even bothered to come over here.
The mall in its present shape is more recent — it used to be a very, very open mall. More like a
California mall, and I felt personally unhappy when they did it over. In fact, the restaurant where Helen
and I had our first lunch was in the mall, upstairs, overlooking what is now the South Orange Reservoir.
…So people needed education as to why. To be honest with you, whether there was this great cry for a
refuge, or whether they say however we do it, we’ve got to do it because we have to do it, I would say
that would vary from person to person.
Mark — Anything else we know that wasn’t in the book. I have to say the book, your description of the
Refuge System, the Fish and Wildlife Service are super. It clarified things when you told me you used to
do textbook editing, because it is very clear. A brief synopsis and very accurate.
Cam — Well I have to tell you that I did a great deal of cribbing from the material that I got from the
files. Quite clearly that was something that had been prepared, in John Gottschalk’s office, I don’t know.
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That’s what would be so vital in a citizens action like this. Don’t give them heavy things to read, give
them a one-page summary that tells the story.
I think I have told you everything that I can think of, and if I think of anything vital that I forgot, I will let
you know.
Mark — Cam, thanks so much for your time.
Cam — just remember about those people. This is the contribution.
• 6,100 individuals
• from 462 organizations
• from 286 towns
• and 29 states.
Mark - How did the people in other states even know about the Great Swamp? Was there a brochure
done?
Cam — oh, absolutely. Garden Clubs are extremely important. But also people who used to live here
and had moved away, they were horrified. In fact, I would have thought it would have been 50 states,
but 29 is pretty good.
Thank Yous…end of tape.
Transcribed by Brisun Productions, Inc. — April 23, 2001